(YET ANOTHER – PARTISAN – NEW IRAN SANCTIONS BILL) HR 4815: Introduced 3/21 by Pompeo (R-KS)
and no cosponsors, the “Iran Ballistic Missile Sanctions Act of 2016.” Referred to the Committees on Foreign
Affairs Financial Services, the Judiciary, Oversight and Government Reform, and Ways and Means.

Letters

(CONTINUE $$ US-ISRAEL COOPERATIVE PROGRAMS) Roskam-Meng
letter: On 3/24, Reps. Roskam (R-IL) and Meng (D-NY) sent a letter to the Chair and Ranking Member of the
House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense urging continued funding for U.S.-Israel defense cooperation programs.
NOTE: This funding is in no way under threat (the letter is the equivalent of a traffic cop standing along a
highway waving at cars to keep on driving…). Press release is here.

(INCREASE U.S.-ISRAEL MISSILE DEFENSE COOPERATION) Donnelly-Sessions letter
to Obama: On 3/23, Sens. Donnelly (D-IN) and Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member and Chair of the Senate Armed
Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, sent a letter to President Obama “highlighting the importance of
investments in U.S. missile defense capabilities and the need to strengthen our partnerships with allies around the
world, particularly Israel, as Iran continues to exhibit dangerous missile program activities.” Press release
is
here.

(STOP IRANIAN SUPPORT FOR HAMAS) Moulton-Kinzinger letter to
Kerry: On 3/18, Reps. Moulton (D-MA) and Kinzinger (R-IL) led a letter, with 39 bipartisan cosigners,
calling on Secretary of State Kerry to work toward a new UN Security Council resolution to ban weapons transfers to
Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations. Press release is
here.

(CONTINUE $$ FOR US-ISRAEL COOPERATIVE PROGRAMS) Kirk-Gillibrand letter: On
3/18, Sens. Kirk (R-IL) and Gillibrand (D-NY) sent a letter to the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense urging full funding for U.S.-Israel defense cooperation programs. NOTE: This
funding is in no way under threat (the letter is the equivalent of a traffic cop standing along a highway waving at
cars to keep on driving…). Press release is here.

2. The AIPAC 2016 Policy Conference

This week, AIPAC activists took to Capitol Hill as they do every year in conjunction with the annual AIPAC Policy
Conference. Unusually, the conference took place at a time when the Senate was out of session (meaning that most
senators were not in town to meet with AIPAC conferees or to attend AIPAC events). A few other observations:

A. The 2016 AIPAC Lobbying Agenda was the weakest AIPAC lobbing agenda in memory. You can view the full
agenda here (screenshots from the AIPAC
Conference App). The agenda focused on three things: Iran, possible UNSC action on Israel-Palestine, and the new
ten-year MOU governing U.S. military aid to Israel currently under negotiation. Traditionally AIPAC conferees come
to congressional offices with specific asks – i.e., asking members to cosponsor legislation (specific bills or
resolutions) or sign specific letters. This year, the situation was very different.

On Iran: AIPAC conferees went to the Hill with no concrete
asks – no letters to sign, no specific bills or resolutions to cosponsor. This appears to reflect the inability
of members in either chamber to come to bipartisan consensus on Iran-related legislation – most likely because,
while Democrats support strong oversight of the JCPOA and getting tough on Iran over ballistic missile tests,
they are not on board with efforts to scuttle the JCPOA or score gratuitous points over the Iran deal (which
Democrats largely supported) during this election period. Which left AIPAC with the painful choice of lobbying
in support of partisan legislation – and feeding the view of many that AIPAC has become a partisan organization
– or lobbying nothing specific at all.

On Israel-Palestine: AIPAC conferees went to the Senate with,
again, no concrete legislative ask. In the House, they did have an ask: they asked members to sign the
relatively moderate Lowey-Granger
letter (moderate for what it doesn’t say more than what it does, and for the wiggle room it leaves in the
wording it contains). Both the absence of a Senate vehicle and the relative moderation of the House letter
appear to reflect the fact that many Democrats are disinclined to get on board with Republican – and AIPAC –
efforts to lay down unreasonable, hard red lines with respect to possible action by the Obama Administration on
Israeli-Palestine in these final months in office.

Aid to Israel: With respect to the MOU, AIPAC conferees once
again were sent to the House with no concrete ask. In the Senate, they did have a concrete ask, urging
senators to sign the Graham-Coons letter.
However, this seemingly benign letter is reportedly proving problematic, since in making the case for increased
military aid to Israel, it asserts, pretty directly, that the JCPOA is a bad deal that will fail in the near
term, thus increasing the danger to Israel (“Moreover, Israel must prepare for the likelihood that Iran will
resume its quest for nuclear weapons.”). This framing is self-evidently problematic (and probably
infuriating) for Senate Democrats who supported the Iran deal and also support increased aid to Israel (it is
not clear why Senator Coons, who has been an outspoken defender of the JCPOA, did not see this as a problem; it
also remains to be seen if the letter will pick up steam when the Senate is back in session).

B. What WASN’T lobbied is telling. Missing from the 2016 Lobbying Agenda was anything related to BDS. This
absence is notable given that of the four issues listed on AIPAC’s website under “Legislative Agenda,” the BDS issue is the only one that was not
part of the 2016 lobbying agenda. This absence is even more notable given that the “Fight the Boycott of Israel”
page on AIPAC’s website features (as of this writing) numerous pending bipartisan BDS-related pieces of
legislation, including “the Combating BDS Act of 2016” (HR 4514 and S. 2531) – all of which, it should be noted,
include the “settlements=Israel” conflation. So why did AIPAC leave this issue entirely off their 2016 lobbying
agenda?

One possible reason is that AIPAC-led efforts on this issue over the past year – which successfully pushed Congress
to adopt “settlements=Israel” language (misleadingly promoted as strictly anti-BDS language) as part of two major
trade bills – turned out to be what soccer fans would call an “own-goal.” As has been exhaustively reported
in previous Round-Ups, passage of the faux-BDS provision in the TPA bill yielded a statement from the
Administration calling out the “settlements=Israel” conflation and rejecting it; the subsequent passage of an even
more problematic version of the faux-BDS provision, included in the Customs Bill, yielded a presidential signing
statement declaring the “settlements=Israel” unconstitutional. In this context, it seems plausible that AIPAC has
determined that pushing further “settlements=Israel” legislation in Congress is not a smart idea, at least at this
time.

C. This is the latest in a series of consecutive years where lobbying has proved problematic for AIPAC.

2013 AIPAC lobbying agenda: The 2/28/14 edition of the Round-Up covered the full or
partial defeat of all of AIPAC’s major 2013 lobbying initiatives (some of which spread into 2014). These were:
S.
Res. 65, aka, the “backdoor to war” resolution – which passed only after being significantly watered
down by the Senate; S. 462 and HR
938, aka, the “best-allies-with-benefits” bills – that hit a roadblock due to AIPAC’s overreach in
trying to force Israel into the Visa Waiver Program (it took AIPAC 18 months and two policy conferences to get
the measure passed, and then only after the Visa Waiver section had been stripped down to non-binding
language); and HR 850, the Iran sanctions bill that
passed the House and died in the Senate.

2015 AIPAC lobbying agenda: In 2015, there was the battle over
the Corker bill, which was clearly intended to be a roadblock to any agreement with Iran and was a key ask at
that year’s policy conference. That bill failed
to attract widespread Senate support in its original form, and only moved when it was amended to such an
extent that ultimately the Obama Administration supported it. AIPAC’s other key ask in the 2015 policy
conference was S. 269 – another Kirk
(R-IL)-Menendez (D-NJ) Iran bill intended to be a roadblock to an Iran deal. This bill went nowhere.

Kirk (R-IL) 3/22 press release: At AIPAC
Conference, “Kirk Ahead of the Curve as Defender of Israel” (NOTE: Kirk’s press release claims, in effect, that
AIPAC conferees are lobbying in support of several Iran-related legislation he has introduced/cosponsored – in
reality, AIPAC’s lobby agenda for this conference did not specify any of these pieces of legislation).

3. Hearings

4/5:
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing entitled, “Recent Iranian Actions and Implementation
of the Nuclear Deal.” As of this writing the only scheduled witness is Under Secretary of State for Political
Affairs, Thomas Shannon.

3/22: The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa held a hearing
entitled, “Hezbollah's Growing Threat Against U.S. National Security Interests in the Middle East.”
Witnesses were: Matthew Levitt, WINEP [statement]; Tony Badran, FDD [statement]; and Daniel Byman, Georgetown University [statement]. Video of the hearing is here.

Feinstein
(D-CA) 3/24: Feinstein Statement on Iran Hacking Indictments - “I congratulate the Justice Department and
the FBI for these indictments and look forward to the individuals being held accountable for their actions.”

Dold (R-IL) 3/23: Standing Up for
Israel (excerpt: One of the pressing problems facing Israel right now is the boycott, divestment and sanctions
(BDS) movement. Many people remain unaware of the threat this hateful and misguided movement poses to Israel. [At
the AIPAC Policy Conference] I took a minute to answer a question about BDS and our new bipartisan bill, the
Combating BDS Act of 2016.” (video here).

Rogers (R-AL)
3/23: We Must Support Israel (excerpt: “The Obama Administration’s relationship with Israel over the past seven
years has been strained close to the breaking point. President Obama has neglected Israel and left them without
many of the resources they need…)

Royce
(R-CA) 3/22: Chairman Royce Statement on President Obama’s Trip to Argentina (“I am disappointed to hear
President Obama’s schedule does not include a stop at the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association or a meeting with
survivors. The July 18, 1994 attacks on AMIA and the Israeli embassy remain the deadliest acts of terror in
Argentina’s history…”